Misadventures in Parenting: The Early Years
by Lt.Gungirl
Summary: Sequel to A time for Family. Albert and Françoise have faced deadly enemies, saved the world a few times, but are they prepared to raise a child? Comedy oneshots.
1. Sick Baby

**Note: unless otherwise stated most dialogue with noncyborgs would be in French-seeing as they are living in France.**

Parenthood was the hardest task they had set down to in a long time. Fran was somewhat prepared having taken care of Ivan, but Irene was different. For starters she wasn't a cyborg and so didn't have Ivan's ability to communicate what she needed. Irene was tiny, and so much more fragile than they were used to. Gilmore left after a few weeks, all the while assuring Françoise that the baby was healthy.

And so began their toughest duty yet.

The first time Irene got sick Françoise panicked. In the decade since she became a cyborg Fran had begun to forget some of the aspects that no longer effected her. Illness was a thing of the past for all of the 00s. When Albert got home that afternoon she and the baby were ready to go into town. "We have to take her to the doctor Albert, she's ill." The desperation in Fran was almost amusing to him.

"Are you sure?" He asked.

She turned to angry and worried eyes on him. "I can hear it in her lungs. She's got it in her lungs."

"Alright then." He said opening the door for her. "On the way back I'll have to fuel up the truck. Tomorrow I've got a lot of driving to do."

"Oh you won't stay home and help me with Irene?" She asked.

"Only if it's serious." Albert replied. "Have you forgotten what having a job means?"

"Right," Fran replied quietly. She had found the return to traditional life a bit overwhelming. Almost harder than fighting Black Ghost. "I've forgotten that humans still get sick. I almost miss it," She sighed handing Irene to Albert so she could climb into the truck. He handed the baby up to her.

"Yeah, it means something to be able to get sick," he replied before shutting her door and climbing behind the wheel.

In town they found a doctor's office after asking several people. He was a young man and he looked at the couple with a raised eyebrow. "You've not been to a doctor here?" He asked. "She's nearly five months old. There's no records on her from any nearby hospitals."

Fran and Albert shared a look. "My father is a doctor," she replied. "He's out of town on business. He's been taking care of Irene and the two of us. That's why she doesn't have any medical records Dr. Beloq."

"You're father would be?" The doctor asked his blue eyes inquisitive.

"Isaac Gilmore," Albert answered with a finality in his voice. He didn't think asking questions about medical history was proper while Fran sat here worrying over Irene.

Dr. Beloq looked down at the girl. "Well, it sounds like she's got a bronchial infection. How long has she had a cold?"

"What cold?" Françoise asked. "She's had no symptoms until today."

"That is odd. Good thing you came here. I'll just prescribe her a light antibiotic. Do you have insurance?" Beloq asked.

"No." Albert replied. "My employer doesn't provide it and I can't pay for it just yet."

Beloq sighed. "This will cost you a lot more than you think. I've started a medical file for her here, if you want to get yourselves in the system as well make an appointment for a physical." He wrote something on a slip of paper and then handed it to Albert along with a business card. "Give me a call if symptoms worsen or new issues arise. The secretary will give you your bill." He left the room.

"Next time call Gilmore." Albert whispered as they left the office. The bill had been rather heavy, almost a hundred dollars for an outpatient urgent examination.

"I won't bring her back here." Fran agreed. "I don't feel comfortable around men like him." She remarked getting in the truck.

"Ok, let's get this filled and then go fuel up." Albert started the engine. "Though I'm impressed with Irene. She didn't cry once."

"That's cause she's a good girl, she knows better than to make a scene." Fran smiled. Albert caught sight of the light in her eyes, it was the light he had seen the past few months. A look of fulfillment, _All she ever wanted was to be a mother and a wife. The battlefield doesn't suit her at all._


	2. Diapers and Laughter

Françoise couldn't help but laugh. She thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Here he was, the tough cyborg 004, who was having quite the trouble changing Irene's diaper. "No, no the sticky tabs go on the front flap," she said between giggles. He grunted and attempted to remove the sticky tabs from his fingers and onto the diaper. He pulled one hand away only to hear his wife guffaw at him.

She was laughing hard now. He looked at his hand and groaned. The sticky tab was still stuck to his hand, and the diaper was stuck to the sticky tab. He felt stupid and shook his hand violently the diaper finally coming loose and falling to the floor. Fran didn't try to hide her laughter. "I'm glad someone finds this amusing." Albert pulled a new diaper from the drawer in the changing table and tried it again.

Irene was laying there just staring up at him with those big green eyes of hers. Her fingers were clutching her toes tightly and she seemed oblivious to the current situation. She blew spittle out of her mouth contently and then smiled.

Albert gently lifted up her exposed bottom half and stuck the diaper under her. As Fran had shown him he shook the baby powder container sending the white substance onto the pad. Fran was standing next to him now as he tried once again to get the diaper secured around Irene's rear. She stifled her giggles as best she could.

He pulled one of the sticky tabs up and somehow managed to secure half the diaper to his daughter. When he succeeded in getting the other half properly closed he sighed in relief. He held her up "Ta-da."

"That's very good," Fran assured. "But now you've got to button up her onesie again." She giggled a little even though she knew she shouldn't. It wasn't her husband's favorite thing in the world to do. He just wasn't very good at doing up buttons or tying ties. And sometimes even Fran had trouble with those metal snaps.

Albert sighed and she cut her laughter short. "Want some help?"

"Nope. I seem to be just fine on my own." And by some miracle he had it snapped up before she could retort. "See." He smirked. She smiled.

"You missed one," she chortled. He looked down at the snaps to see that there was no such mistake made. "Made you look," Fran giggled as she quickly walked away from her husband.

"Frannie," Albert growled playfully while scooping up Irene. She clapped her hands and babbled. "Shall we go get Mommy?" He asked. She clapped her hands again not knowing what mischief her father was planning. Albert smiled. "Good girl," he whispered following his wife.

The laughter that came out of that house for the greater part of an hour could be heard half a block down. Lucky for them, they didn't have neighbors that close. So the laughter went on unchecked.


	3. Please Eat

Fran wiped her face off again. "Irene," she scolded. The twelve month old baby had been spitting out every spoonful of baby food that Françoise had gotten into her mouth. "You have to eat your food." Fran picked up the spoon and tried again, "It's mashed carrots, your favorite."

As if in response Irene giggled and smacked the spoon sending it to the floor with a clack. Fran sighed. "I wish your father was home," she whined. Albert was out on a mission for Dr. Gilmore with a couple of the others.

Fran's clothes were stained with baby food of various colors. Fran's hair was mussed and the shadows under her eyes were dark. She hadn't been getting much rest with Albert gone. They usually switched off on nights taking care of Irene when she woke up.

From the start Fran had known she couldn't produce milk. So much cybernetic work had been done in her chest it was physically impossible. Formula was the only way and though Fran hated that fact it had been nice to share the job of feeding Irene with her husband.

She looked at the kitchen, it was a mess. There was baby food everywhere caked onto the cabinets. Dishes in the sink had yet to be washed, there was a half eaten plate of spaghetti on the table. And the high chair was even dirtier. Fran took a sip of her coffee and made a face, it was cold. She took a second anyways hoping that the caffeine would hit her just this once.

Anything that normally effected humans was too weak for the cyborg. Coffee was one of those impotent things of the past. She drank it for the flavor these days.

Irene was going through a stage that Fran had been warned about. Still, it was hard for her to remain patient when Irene refused to eat. Fran didn't try again. She'd wait until Irene wanted to eat. That wouldn't be too long Fran hoped. There was a quiet for a few minutes until Irene cried.

She wanted to eat now. Fran tried again and Irene actually swallowed a bite. Francoise sighed and after finally getting a few bites of food into the girl she put Irene in her playpen and then went to take a nap. "I'll definitely be happy when your father gets home." She whispered before drifting to sleep.


	4. No Fighting

Irene Heinrich really wasn't to blame for her runaway temper, she'd gotten it from her father. But she was responsible for the fights she got into. At age seven she was a force to be reckoned with and most kids at the playground knew better than to piss her off. Usually she didn't start the fights, just ended them.

But on this of all days she took her fighting a little far. It all started with a hurtful comment from one of the older children. An eight or nine year old boy with brown hair and blue eyes. He had never been to this particular playground before so he had no idea what he was getting into.

"Your hair is like an old woman's." He remarked to the younger girl. Two green eyes with pale pupils looked up at him.

"It is not." She replied. "It's like my daddy's," her voice was cold and hard, and her accent was something between German and French. She could speak both fluently.

"Your father must be really old then," the boy replied. "Cause you do too have old woman hair." He stepped closer to her as some of the other children watched. A few, those who had known Irene's wrath firsthand ran for their parents.

"I do not." Irene stood up from the sandpit she was playing in. "Take it back." She demanded glaring back at the boy.

"Never," he stuck his tongue out at her. "Doesn't everyone agree she has old lady hair?" He asked some of the crowd. A few children who were feeling brave nodded in agreement.

"It does look like my grandmother's," one little boy observed.

"Aufhören." Irene yelled in German.

They stared at her confused. "Stop it!" She growled so they could understand. "My hair is not old lady hair." She charged the first boy knocking him to the ground. Some of the gathered children ran for it. A few parents who saw what was happening called their children to them.

Albert Heinrich had been hoping that his daughter wouldn't succumb to her anger. But he knew it was useless, she had his temper and his fighting spirit. Both were personality traits that Fran called weaknesses. He stood up from the bench he was seated at and quickly walked over. "Irene," he called. "Aufhören zu kämpfen." He instructed in German.

The girl glanced up at him as the boy beneath her struck her face. "Nein!" She retorted bringing her fist down on the boy's cheek. Albert darted forward scooping Irene up in one swift motion.

He held her in one hand as he helped the boy up with the other. "Are you ok?" He asked returning to French. The boy nodded a black eye already apparent on his face. A woman came rushing up. Albert stepped back as she knelt next to her son.

"Louis are you alright. Didn't I tell you to stop starting fights? And look you've gone and gotten yourself a black eye again. Whatever will I do with you?" She chided. Her cold blue eyes turned on Albert. "And what about your daughter?" she demanded.

"My apologies," Albert remarked. "But I heard most of their argument before it turned physical. Your son was teasing my daughter."

The woman looked at her son. "Louis, is that true?" The boy shook his head in denial. Irene squirmed in her father's arms so that she could see Louis and his mother.

"He was teasing me!" She yelled. "He said my hair was like an old lady's." She folded her arms over her chest. Albert saw the cut in her cheek, the slight smear of blood around it. He sighed.

"Irene, I told you to ignore teasing," he wiped her cheek with his thumb. Her hands grasped at the fake skin glove.

"Daddy," she whined. "That hurts." He pulled his hand back from her face.

"Sorry," he whispered. Ever since the first time he held her he'd been afraid of hurting her. His almost numb hands could have crushed her easily. Cybernetic sensors had been placed in them, but these served only to relay extreme conditions to his brain. Like heat or cold, pain, and when something had malfunctioned.

"Mamma she hit me," Louis pointed one finger at Irene. The girl stuck her tongue out at him.

"You hit me first," she retorted.

Albert shushed Irene. "I think it's safe to say that they should both apologize," Albert suggested. The woman looked at him.

"Agreed." She gave her son a look.

"I'm sorry," Louis sighed.

"I'm sorry too," Irene replied. Louis's mother pulled him away.

"Of all the humiliation. To have to agree with a German like that," she huffed as she left the park. Albert bit his lip at her words. It was true, that living in France had gotten him a lot of dirty looks, and some people made similar comments. But he wasn't like his countrymen.

"Come on Irene lets get you home and cleaned up." She took his hand in hers and walked alongside him. "It's a good thing your mother is out with Dr. Gilmore and Ivan," he added. "We'd both be in trouble."

"Yeah, mommy stops me before I can fight back," she sighed. Albert chuckled at her. Fran was off on a mission that Gilmore had come to her with. He needed her skill at finding things, as he needed Ivan's mental capabilities. So he'd been left at home with Irene.

Fran usually spotted a fight faster than her husband. And she always tried to keep her daughter out of trouble. Albert on the other hand sometimes let her fight, because he knew that it was inevitable. Besides, bullies had to be put in their place at some point.

As the houses grew fewer Albert noticed that Irene was crying. He stopped and knelt down pulling her so that she faced him. "Irene, what's wrong?" He asked.

She looked at him her eyes red and moist. "I miss mommy," she replied.

Fran had been gone for a week now, and probably would be gone for another at the least. "So do I." He picked Irene up. She buried her head in his neck as they finished the walk home.

Once home Albert doctored up the cut. He cleaned the small cut and bandaged it. "There," he said as he smoothed the bandage over her cheek. She smiled at him.

"Mommy doesn't like it when I get in fights, why is that?"

Albert chuckled. "Because some fights aren't worth fighting." He looked at her intently. "And just because someone is teasing you doesn't mean you should fight them."

She looked at him for a moment. "Then when should I fight?" She questioned.

"Well," he paused. "Fights are hard to judge. You'll have to figure it out for yourself."

"Ok." She ran up the stairs to her room.

"She's so oblivious to the problems with fighting all the time. Some day Fran and I will have to tell her the whole story," he sighed heavily and headed to the kitchen. He should get to making dinner.


	5. Playing War

When Françoise returned home she didn't bother to call them a second time. The night before she'd called to let her family know she was coming home safe and unscathed. Irene had chatted her ear off for twenty minutes before Albert sent her up to bed.

Gilmore and Ivan opted not to come into the house and dropped her off a block down from the house. She walked the distance to her house enjoying the familiarity of her home.

When she got to the villa she heard laughter from inside, two voices were mingled in a harmonious trill of joyful giggling. She smiled to herself. _This is the sound of happiness. _She climbed up the steps and opened the front door.

The scene that greeted her eyes was not exactly what she expected. The living room was a mess. Dirty dishes sat on the coffee table, books were stacked in one corner like a fort, a few volumes had toppled and the couch had been pulled to the other side of the room. Loose papers had exploded like a bomb all over the place. A familiar yellow scarf was draped over the impressive book fortress. Some blocks had been set up as a town that had been reduced to rubble. Dolls were scattered around the smashed town , the positions they were in reminded Fran of people running for their lives. All of the breakable trinkets that usually sat on the shelves or table were in the other room. Several picture frames were crooked on their nails.

Objects were flying across this disaster zone. Stuffed animals were flung from the guilty parties at work here. Irene was behind the book stronghold wearing her father's scarf. Albert used the couch as a blockade at the other end of the room. The stuffed animals were being used as projectiles, and to Fran's dismay her daughter was making explosion noises as her fluffy missiles collided with the wall or the couch.

Both were oblivious to Francoise's entrance._ And I walk in to find this._

Albert popped up at the wrong moment and a pink bird with a yellow scarf and infamous wild red feathers on it's head made contact with his face. He made a mock expression of pain and gasped out a fake dying breath before falling behind the couch. Irene jumped up and down triumphantly the scarf catching on books and scattering them.

"I WIN!" The girl exclaimed. Albert poked his head up laughing.

"You got me fair and square," he grinned. They both came out of their forts.

At about this time an ominous dark tension in the air made them both look at the open door just before it was slammed shut. One of the pictures shook and fell the glass shattering next to her. "MY GOD ALBERT WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?" His wife demanded.

The German looked around and bit his lower lip. "Oh, we made quite a mess," he commented taking in the destruction of the living room silently. "Guess we got carried away."

"Carried away?" Fran snapped. "What were two playing?" She asked, her voice turned disgustingly sweet and threatening. Albert recognized her tone as a prelude to a scolding.

Both remained silent. Neither one wanted to answer her question. They stood in the center of the room, eyes down. Albert tapped a block with the toe of his shoe trying to choose his words wisely. Irene held back an urge to hug Fran and looked at her destroyed block village.

"Could it be you two were having a stuffed animal war in my living room?" She questioned sharply. Two sets of eyes met hers and two white haired heads nodded ever so slightly. Françoise sighed. She was trying to reign in her anger for her daughter's sake. She was only seven after all. But Albert, he knew better and she would definitely have some words with him.

"I'm sorry," Albert whispered. He was catching on now. The word 'war' had been emphasized by his wife.

"Sorry?" She repeated. "What on Earth were you thinking? Of all the things I expected to come home to you playing war with our daughter was the least of all. You know better. I'm just appalled with the both of you, and what was that little fake death? Do you think people dying in a battle is funny? How insulting to our fallen friends and enemies." She took a moment to calm herself glaring at the battlefield in her house.

"I," Albert began, but Fran cut him off.

"Clean this mess up both of you. And then I want to talk to you two in the kitchen." She walked past them. "And to think I invited Dr. Gilmore and Ivan to come in for lunch," she mumbled to herself.

Albert and Irene fell to the task of cleaning up immediately. Irene ran around the room picking up toys and taking them up the stairs to her room. Albert cleaned up the broken frame and put the couch back where it belonged. They both dismantled the book fortress returning the books to the shelves. Albert straightened up the frames lastly and then the two walked into the kitchen.

Fran was seated at the breakfast counter sipping on a cup of tea. She ignored them for a minute enjoying her tea as she gathered up her thoughts. "Irene take that scarf off."

The girl pulled the yellow silk over her head and handed it to her father.

"Now," Fran began in an even tone. "Both of you knew better than to play a game that mimicked war." She sipped her tea letting her first words sink in. "So how did it start?" She asked. Her eyes fell on her husband, she wanted to hear the explanation from him.

"We were building a city in the living room, with the blocks and the books. I tossed her one of her birds and it hit her in the head, before I knew it she was throwing everything she had at me. I ducked behind the couch and she built up the books around her. The next thing we know we're chucking her stuffed animals at each other in a full out battle." It was apparent that despite his genuine regret at the game he thought it was somewhat amusing.

"That's what started it? You know I don't like anyone throwing things in this house." Her voice was disappointed. "I expect that this won't ever happen again. And as punishment you both don't get dessert tonight."

"No dessert?" The two asked in unison. Fran nodded.

"I know I deserve it," Albert sighed. "I should have stopped it before it started."

Irene looked at her mother almost ready to cry, "I'm sorry mommy," she whispered, "I won't play war ever again, I promise." Her eyes spilled over with tears. Fran went and picked up the girl.

"Sh," she soothed. "Besides, it's all Daddy's fault anyway." She hugged the girl tightly, "But please promise you won't ever play war again. War isn't a game, do you understand?" She felt Irene's head move up and down against her shoulder.

Fran looked at Albert. "I really don't understand why you would teach her to play games like that. I expect you'll think about what you teach our daughter from now on?"

"Of course." He replied. "It was poor judgment on my part." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Now that that's settled how about a welcome home kiss?" Fran asked smiling.

Albert answered by bringing his lips to hers. Irene broke the two apart and looked at Fran.

"I missed you so much mommy." The girl announced. Her parents shared a laugh as they went back into the cleaned up living room.


End file.
